Diabetics Food Recommendation

[tropo]

Testing strips can become quite expensive. Does anyone know where they can be purchased cheaply?

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The best deal I've found is at Fascino's with a discount card but still not cheap, I reckon that the choice of tester today is driven by the cost of the strips - I use codefree. Actually, if you can buy them overseas they are much cheaper, even in the UK via Amazon they are half the price of Thailand.

Yes, that Codefree has about the cheapest test strips, but still not cheap. I'm using the EasyGluco, which I also chose by the price of the testing strips, which are about the same as Codefree strips. Codefree wasn't on sale when I bought mine.

You can buy strips much cheaper on eBay and other sites, but by the time you've paid for postage you won't have saved much. I went through this exercise already.

Edited May 11, 2013 by tropo

[Tolley]

As with all health issues do your own research and don't trust anyone one else when it comes to your own health.

No one knows your own body like you do.

Most people can manage diabetes type 2 if they are willing to take control of their own health and be pro active in its management.

In fact having type 2 diabetes can be the impetus to make the changes necessary to maintain good health for the rest of you life because you have to make changes if you want to live a healthy life.

[MiG16]

How crucial is it to do the tests as often as many have suggested? Ie. I'm hearing daily or more frequent.

They were doing after many months. But now maybe weekly?

[chiang mai]

How crucial is it to do the tests as often as many have suggested? Ie. I'm hearing daily or more frequent.

They were doing after many months. But now maybe weekly?

My vote on that one is to test very frequently at the outset and then to reduce when you have a good understanding of what's happening and then go into maintenance mode. In practise, for me, that meant testing fasting plus one hour and two hour post prandial every meal every day making seven times a day. I did that for ttwo months but then started to eliminate testing after meals that I knew were OK. Today I test every morning/fasting and one meal a day after two hours unless I'm trying a new food stuff in which case I test after that.

One thing you can't predict is the unforseen changes that take place, I had a series of them where my levels rose significantly due to cold weather, another took place because of very hot weather and yet another when I had a physcial accident and was sick at the same time and on antibiotics, all those things affect glucose levels. I can't imagine ever testing less than once a day but others may do things differently.

[chiang mai]

An after thought:

Testing is like exersise, you can't just do it once or for a month and then largely forget about it, you have to keep doing it. If Diabetes was a disease that improved over time there's a chance that a person might be able to get away with out testing, but diabetes is progressive and this means it will only ever get worse and nobody knows when that "when" might be, So getting a head start on the numbers when things do start to deterioate might make the difference between starting medication early versus suffering the symptoms of something far worse than just diabetes.

Having said the above, I know of one person who doesn't test but instead went straight onto medication in order to keep his life more normal to what he'd known previously, this meant he didn't have to be super careful about what he eats. That's another approach that works for that poster and each to their own, I'm not big on having to take meds every day and want to avoid that where I can, or at a minimum, postpone the day when I have to start.

Finally, I saw my old family doctor in the UK last month and we talked about diabetes, she told me that in the UK they wouldn't do any daily testing at all, even if you were prescribed insulin, the only test they do is the A1C every 3 months, I wanted to ask her what percentage of patients loose their eyesight or feet but didn't. Almost certainly the UK position on testing is driven by the cost of strips and testing but I thought it was worth mentioning.

Edited May 11, 2013 by chiang mai

[tropo]

Having said the above, I know of one person who doesn't test but instead went straight onto medication in order to keep his life more normal to what he'd known previously, this meant he didn't have to be super careful about what he eats. That's another approach that works for that poster and each to their own, I'm not big on having to take meds every day and want to avoid that where I can, or at a minimum, postpone the day when I have to start.

This could become a real problem if the insulin production slows down or comes to a halt. Type 2 medication can only work to a point. Many type 2's become insulin dependent i.e. require insulin injections.

[Ulysses G.]

I'll put money down that if a diabetic sits down to a decent plate of carrots and pumpkin he's going to get a considerable blood sugar spike. These are very sweet vegetables with loads of sugar. The problem is that these veges are usually just part of a more balanced meal and everything eaten has an effect on blood sugar so it's difficult to isolate the effect of individual foods.

You might be right, but all one would have to do is eat a reasonable portion instead of a whole plate of carrots or pumpkin. Anyone who is watching their blood sugar and general health should take portion size in consideration.

[tropo]

I'll put money down that if a diabetic sits down to a decent plate of carrots and pumpkin he's going to get a considerable blood sugar spike. These are very sweet vegetables with loads of sugar. The problem is that these veges are usually just part of a more balanced meal and everything eaten has an effect on blood sugar so it's difficult to isolate the effect of individual foods.

You might be right, but all one would have to do is eat a reasonable portion instead of a whole plate of carrots or pumpkin. Anyone who is watching their blood sugar and general health should take portion size in consideration.

I sat down to a plate of roast carrots and pumpkin last night. I added roast chicken and broad beans. Most enjoyable it was.

[chiang mai]

I'll put money down that if a diabetic sits down to a decent plate of carrots and pumpkin he's going to get a considerable blood sugar spike. These are very sweet vegetables with loads of sugar. The problem is that these veges are usually just part of a more balanced meal and everything eaten has an effect on blood sugar so it's difficult to isolate the effect of individual foods.

You might be right, but all one would have to do is eat a reasonable portion instead of a whole plate of carrots or pumpkin. Anyone who is watching their blood sugar and general health should take portion size in consideration.

I sat down to a plate of roast carrots and pumpkin last night. I added roast chicken and broad beans. Most enjoyable it was.

And so what was the sugar reading afterwards, you said you'd put money down that you'd get a considerable spike, did you win the bet?

[tropo]

I sat down to a plate of roast carrots and pumpkin last night. I added roast chicken and broad beans. Most enjoyable it was.

And so what was the sugar reading afterwards, you said you'd put money down that you'd get a considerable spike, did you win the bet?

As you know I'm able to handle a high carb load now without spikes, so a bunch of carrots and pumpkin wouldn't even cause a blip. I didn't want to waste a test strip on it.

We'd need to find someone with seriously bad carb tolerance to test my theory... and of course someone who loves carrots and pumpkin.

Edited May 12, 2013 by tropo

[onionluke]

I sat down to a plate of roast carrots and pumpkin last night. I added roast chicken and broad beans. Most enjoyable it was.

And so what was the sugar reading afterwards, you said you'd put money down that you'd get a considerable spike, did you win the bet?

As you know I'm able to handle a high carb load now without spikes, so a bunch of carrots and pumpkin wouldn't even cause a blip. I didn't want to waste a test strip on it.

We'd need to find someone with seriously bad carb tolerance to test my theory... and of course someone who loves carrots and pumpkin.

I am onto it lads .

[chiang mai]

Here's another argument in favour of testing:

I woke up this morning and decided to test, only to find that my blood glucose levels are at an all time low (for me), I recorded 97 which is the latest in a series of declining fasting numbers that started with them hovering around 135 back in January, clearly something is changing/has changed in my body. My 2 hour postprandial breakfast is at 105 and my other post meals at 108, gone are the spikes to 180 and the high averages of 140, if I hadn't been doing regular testing I wouldn't know these things and I wouldn't be eating sausage and egg mcmuffins for breakfast this morning.

On a separate note: I posted earlier about someone I know who doesn't self test and takes metaformin instead so as to be able to eat some of the food stuffs he likes. Said friend points out that his strategy still requires a very careful diet and three monthly testing of A1C and that the approach is one based on advice from the Mayo Clinic, I apologise if I had made that strategy seem as though a person was able to take meds and ignore the diet which is absolutely not the case and was not intended.